a bit of woollen. You hear of it--and ask,
'_Where is Madame de Salisbury?_' Here beyond doubt is the cock of
AEsop's fable," snarled John Copeland, "who unearthed a gem and
grumbled that his diamond was not a grain of corn."

"You will be hanged ere dawn," the King replied, and yet by this one
hand had screened his face. "Meanwhile spit out your venom."

"I say to you, then," John Copeland continued, "that to-day you are
master of Europe. That but for this woman whom for twenty years you
have neglected you would to-day be mouldering in some pauper's grave.
Eh, without question, you most magnanimously loved that shrew of
Salisbury! because you fancied the color of her eyes, Sire Edward, and
admired the angle between her nose and her forehead. Minstrels unborn
will sing of this great love of yours. Meantime I say to you"--now the
man's rage was monstrous--"I say to you, go home to your too-tedious
wife, the source of all your glory! sit at her feet! and let her teach
you what love is!" He flung away the dagger. "There you have the
truth. Now summon your attendants, my tres beau sire, and have me
hanged."

The King gave no movement. "You have been bold--" he said at last.

"But you have been far bolder, sire. For twenty years you have dared
to flout that love which is God made manifest as His main heritage to
His children."

King Edward sat in meditation for a long while. "I consider my wife's
clerk," he drily said, "to discourse of love in somewhat too much the
tone of a lover." And a flush was his reward.

But when this Copeland spoke he was as one transfigured. His voice was
grave and very tender.

"As the fish have their life in the waters, so I have and always shall
have mine in love. Love made me choose and dare to emulate a lady,
long ago, through whom I live contented, without expecting any other
good. Her purity is so inestimable that I cannot say whether I derive
more pride or sorrow from its pre-eminence. She does not love me, and
she never will. She would condemn me to be hewed in fragments sooner
than permit her husband's little finger to be injured. Yet she
surpasses all others so utterly that I would rather hunger in her
presence than enjoy from another all which a lover can devise."

Sire Edward stroked the table through this while, with an inverted pen.
He cleared his throat. He said, half-fretfully:

"Now, by the Face! it is not given every man to love precisely in this
tr